End Times

End Times is the latest album from Eels, the band fronted by Mark Everett. I've written about Mark before on these pages and reviewed his autobiography: Things The Grandchildren Should Know, when it came out a year or so ago. As a musician and lyricist I think he always delivers an album of almost unmatched quality and consistently. There are no filler tunes, just a collection of outstanding songs.

As with most of the events that have shaped Mark's life this album has a theme, a purpose and almost certainly an afterlife of its own. It chronicles the break-up of his last long term relationship and whilst that might make you think it's going to be all gloom and doom it's not, well not completely. What I find most interesting and appealing in his whole oeuvre of work is that he can turn the mundane into the interesting and the potentially depressing into a rumination on life. Of course there is bitterness and anger, but that doesn't make this album any different to that of any artist who has written and recorded a song about betrayal or a love that has gone wrong.

As I have said before the works of art that touch me most are those that make me think. I know Lennon said, somewhat tongue in cheek, that "pop music should be like a newspaper, written, recorded, released and then forgotten," and whilst that may be true of some 'disposable pop', the works of the great and the good live on. The lyrics of the bitter have always attracted me, whether Pete Townsend, Ray Davies, Elvis Costello, Paul Weller or Morrissey and to that list I add the lyrics and music of Mark Oliver Everett.

This video is for End Times. It's track six on the album and the video is simple and yet affective in conveying the mood of the song. It's that time at the end of a relationship when nothing else seems important and yet annoys at the same time, when the cloak of depression makes you feel invincible and yet vulnerable at the same time. I love this track, hopefully some visitor to this page will too.